Azerbaijan Wants to Fix Your Name

We’ve seen this before. First it was dropping Russian endings to last names. It’s now time to make sure that your first name doesn’t sound funny or sound Russian or fall outside of the rules of the Azerbaijani language. Seriously:

The deputy chairwoman of the academy’s terminology commission, Sayali Sadigova, said that Soviet-style names, funny names and names not in line with the rules of the Azerbaijani language had been removed, APA reported.

“Of course, no one gives their children names like Traktor or Kombayn now and names like Limonad, Chalagan and Oynagan [Lemonade, Playful and Dancer] sound funny,” she said.

No, they aren’t kidding. And if you ask Azeris around the country, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear them in support of controlling the names of their fellow Azerbaijani citizens. I’m not sure how this helps anyone or what this does to improve administration of the state or how this is positive at all. As foreigners, we Peace Corps Volunteers are already overwhelmed by sheer quantity of Elnurs and Elshans and Fuads who dominate the Azeri name population. A kid named Traktor wouldn’t be so bad. On the bright side:

The commission has kept more than 180,000 names on the list of of names submitted for review by the Justice Ministry.

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I Speak for Myself

Here's the scoop: This blog is mine, and it only reflects what I'm thinking and doing, not what anyone else is thinking and doing. It certainly doesn't reflect anything from the US or Azerbaijan Government, nor Peace Corps.